Melrose’s Jake Dalziel supplies 13 points as Scotland’s under-20s beat Japan at 2026’s World Rugby Junior Championship to finish second in pool

That was their second win of the tournament, taking head coach Fergus Pringle’s squad to 11 points from three fixtures and earning them what’s billed as a fifth-place play-off semi-final against Argentina in Tbilisi on Sunday, with kick-off at 3pm.

Fly-half Dalziel, 17, scored a 79th-minute try and kicked four conversions as his team beat the Japanese 43-32 at the Aia Arena in Kutaisi.

Scotland’s other tries were touched down by scrum-half Matthew Fick on three minutes, right-winger Daniel Kelly on 14, tighthead prop Ollie Blyth-Lafferty on 18, hooker Joe Roberts on 33 and replacements Jamie McAughtrie and Alex Bryden on 50 and 73.

Replying with tries in the other direction were Koshi Tsumura, Sota Miura, Shinnosuke Uchida and Isa Fukada, with Yuki Kobayashi adding three conversions and a penalty.

Dalziel, now in Newcastle Red Bulls’ academy, was one of four Borderers in former Hawick lock Pringle’s starting line-up, along with Kelso’s Jack Utterson at openside flanker, Gala’s Nairn Moncrieff on the left wing and Peebles’ Rory McHaffie at full-back, the other three all being 19.

The No 10 and McHaffie put in full shifts, with Utterson going off on 42 minutes and Moncrieff on 60, replaced by Jackson Rennie and Ewan Craven respectively.

This week’s win followed a 36-26 loss to New Zealand last Thursday and 38-32 victory over Italy on Saturday, June 27, both also in Kutaisi.

Dalziel and Edinburgh academy teammates Utterson, Moncrieff and McHaffie have been ever-presents for their country so far this tournament, with the No 10, son of Scotland national team forwards coach John Dalziel, playing every minute of every match.

They were accompanied by Peebles’ Ross Wolfenden at inside-centre for the first hour of their opening game and the second half of their loss to New Zealand in the same position, respectively going off for and replacing Alex Bryden, but the 20-year-old, also in United Rugby Championship outfit Edinburgh’s academy, has been ruled out of the rest of the tournament by an ankle injury.

As well as providing almost a third of his team’s points this week, Dalziel kicked four conversions and scored a try versus Italy and added another three sets of extras against New Zealand.

Utterson played for 53 minutes versus Italy before making way for Harvey Preston and for 40 against the All Blacks, with Oliver Finlayson-Russell taking over.

Moncrieff and McHaffie both put in full shifts for the Scots’ opener, the former scoring one try and the latter two. The No 11 also went the distance five days later but his No 15 teammate went off on 68 minutes, with Campbell Waugh replacing him.

Scotland are now in with a chance of finishing fifth and matching their best result ever in the competition back in 2017.

If they lose to Argentina, they’re out and will remain seventh, but if they win, they’ll go on to play one further match against Australia or Wales.

Pringle, 48, was glad to see his side secure a second victory but wasn’t entirely happy about how they got there, saying: “It wasn’t the most accurate performance by us.

“We started well but we let them into the game just through our errors and our ill-discipline.

“That being said, we’d probably have lost a game like that in the past.

“It was 50-50 in the final quarter and there were some big momentum swings, so I suppose that’s what we’ve got to focus on going forward.

“We need to improve our discipline and accuracy, but there’s a lot of character there, and for the guys, I think it has pulled up their confidence to know they can get a win like that when they know they are not at their best.

“I thought the boys did really well to get that bonus point against New Zealand because, ultimately, that was the difference, and none of the other two teams could manage to do that, so I feel we fully deserve to go through.

“Now’s a chance for us to really try and go and get a couple of big scalps. It’s going to be against elite teams. It’s a chance for us to really go and try and turn over a top team and we haven’t managed to do that this year.

“We’ve beaten Italy twice, we’ve beaten Japan, but could we go and get a victory against a really top team?

“We took a few knocks so we’ll reassess, see where we are and then just try and get the boys to recover really well, rest up and go have a real crack at whoever we play next.”